Wii U won't support DVD, Blu-ray playback

President Satoru Iwata told investors that consumers already own devices that can play both forms of media, and that doing so for Wii U would incur additional licensing costs.

"Wii U does not have DVD or Blu-ray playback capabilities," Eurogamer quotes him as saying.

"The reason for that is that we feel that enough people already have devices that are capable of playing DVDs and Blu-ray, such that it didn't warrant the cost involved to build that functionality into the Wii U console because of the patents related to those technologies."

The original Wii was not compatible with DVD movies for similar reasons, despite using the format for retail games.